#lestat did say he wanted to be a priest

[emprcaesar]

I HAVE SOMETHING INAPPROPRIATE TO SAY ✋

priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat priest lestat

[eyestrain-addict]

I just realized why lestat marked Tom, like the big stupid idiot I am

(I know everyone else probably already figured this out, but this is MY blog and I get to post whatever deranged thought crosses my pea brained mind.)

When I watched that scene in episode 5 where they're at the bar talking to Tom, I was confused as to why exactly. Why does Lestat mark Tom? If he's marked to kill, why does he wait almost 2 decades later? Well I realized, as all realizations come, in the shower.

Lestat has been planning on killing Tom the whole time.

(Warning before you click read more, this post is a lot longer than I first intended holy fuck)

Well not the whole time. Just right when Louis realized that Anderson and Fenwick had screwed him over. Maybe even longer if he knew it was a trick ("ridiculous of you to mix human and vampire business it always ends poorly"). Notice how he's upset with louis when he kills the guy who's microaggressive with him, cus lestat wasn't there (even if he was there I have my doubts Lestat would understand microaggressions, but he would have definitely killed him for touching Louis.) But tells Louis he's proud of him for killing Alderman. I think this has to be because he witnessed the disrespect first hand. He didn't give a fuck about the money, what he DID care about was that those two disrespected not only him, but Louis.

Even with Lestats little understanding of race relations of the time in America, he did understand hierarchys. He's from 1700s France for God's sake. It's no coincidence wanted to be king of mardi gras. Lestat came to New Orleans and saw himself as the king, even if no one knew it. And he wanted Louis to be his queen. Honestly I could make an entire other post about how Lestat almost literally saw himself as if he was a King and Louis his beloved Queen, which is why he thought it was okay for him to sleep with other women (mistresses and playthings of the king should mean nothing compared to the queen in lestats eyes) but that's getting off topic. I only bring that up because I'm trying to paint a picture of how I think Lestat sees disrespect done to Louis. To him that goes beyond disrespect or rudeness, it's irreverence.

You begin to notice if you watch scenes with them together. Because while I wouldn't say lestat is good at controlling his anger, he's definitely great at concealing it until it erupts (props to Sam Reid have to be given here) lestat is always on the verge of fury when talking to Tom. It starts as a distaste then as he begins to fall more in love with Louis and become more protective of him, his anger builds. Claudia was wrong about one thing, it was no petty slight that was the reason Lestat killed Tom first, it was a loooonng time coming.

I could list every detail I think supports this but I'm sure you get the gist by now. My main point is really the layer of complexity this adds to not only the story, the characters, but also lestat and louis' relationship. Consider it for a second, Lestat saw all his violence as justified, everything he did one can see it through the lense of him punishing the disrespectful (take a shot every time I say disrespect in this post jesus christ). "I bring death to those deserving" indeed. Lestat has a god complex out the wazoo, and every attack, torture, and death he caused was righteous to him and thus enjoyable. Louis on the other hand didn't see himself so highly. He may seem confident but if you look through the cracks it's apparent Louis's self worth in near nonexistent and he's horribly insecure. I think lestat thought when Louis was made a vampire he would see himself as Lestat saw himself, and as Lestat saw Louis. But again, another post for another time.

Despite Louis' insecurities (or perhaps because of them) louis revels in the violence lestat commits for his sake. That's probably why louis is so quick to forgive lestat about the priests. For a brief moment Lestat truly said the truth to Louis and Louis could forgive him because of it. As lestat says, he doesn't kill the priests to intimidate Louis, nor does he do it just because he enjoys it. He does it because he sees them as humiliating Louis, charlatans that don't deserve Louis' sorrow. Louis didn't want the priest's to die, but he could understand why lestat killed them, simply because for once in his goddamn life lestat told the truth, and louis loved that truth. That truth being that lestat killed and mutilated and committed such horrors not just because he liked it, but because he did it out of a fucked up sense of protection. Him killing the priests was essentially a knight killing a dragon to earn the princess' hand in marriage.

The worst part is that Lestat doesn't even realize it. Not fully anyway. Let's be honest with ourselves, lestat doesn't understand Louis. Obviously there's the race, background, culture differences that lestat doesn't understand nor seems inclined to try, but there are better posts about that made by smarter people than moi. I'm mostly talking about lestat doesn't understand louis' mind itself (louis' mind in a vacuum I suppose you could say) he understands Louis' desire for violence sure, but he doesn't understand the core of that want. Honestly I'm on the fence of if he ever understood that Louis loved it when lestat was protective in the first place. I guess it can be dumbed down to Louis wants Lestat to kill to protect Louis and to protect the family (and anyone who deeply disrepects them), lestat perhaps understood a little at one point, but since he sees everyone as a threat and everything is a slight to him, he has no trouble and qualms with delighting in the torture of people Louis views as innocent. Louis' heart is a bit dark, but ultimately human, so he's disgusted by lestats violence towards the undeserving. Lestat can no longer read Louis' mind and even if he could, Louis doesn't quite understand the difference himself (that's why he tries to hunt for criminals briefly) so the cracks of miscommunication starts to form, and neither of them even realize there is miscommunication.

Therein lies the importance of Tom Anderson for season 1. Not much of a character, more of a plot device in human skin. Claudia can see that Lestat hates him, but doesn't understand why, nor does she care to get to the depths of that. (*Mr house voice* understandable) I think it's notable that Louis rarely brought him up, he didn't understand the depths of lestats love. Nor did he know about Lestats 3 decade long grudge, all because Tom disrespected Louis.

Now I'm not excusing Lestat's actions, I just think it's interesting how this one throwaway character reveals a whole level of complexity to the relationship between him and Louis, and better sheds light on not only Lestats personal philosophy but louis' as well. Even Claudia to a degree.

Anyway, uh. End of essay. Bye.

[wouriqueen]

So during the screaming match in episode 3, Louis says, "That's cause you took my life ! I got nothing. I lost everything. I lost my brother. I lost my family"... This was about the consequences of him becoming a vampire. He could've stuck with "I lost my family" - I think him mentioning his brother so distinctly was the first clue he strongly suspected Lestat of killing Paul.

And I say "strongly" because despite him trying to play it down when faced with Lestat's denial in episode 6 ... his accusatory face when he asked and the simple fact he'd never brought it up before ? To the point Lestat was so taken aback by the question ? Yeah, he really felt Lestat probably did that ! Because if you overall trust your husband and it's just a tiny seed of doubt, wouldn't you ask ? To relieve yourself from the pain of suspecting him ?

You'd only hold back if you truly felt you might find out he did do it. But then if Louis was to get confirmation, he would have to give up on his home with Lestat, their love, their family, and face immortality and vampirism alone even though he only came into it for Lestat and had to lose everything else for it.

OR : he'd stay, because there's nothing he wants out there and Paul is already dead anyway, but nothing would ever be the same.

OR : he'd stay, and find he can keep on living with, loving, kissing, fucking, and parenting together with his brother's murderer. The brother he "loved more than anyone else on earth". And he'd have to live forever knowing he's that kind of person.

So he shoved his head in the sand.

And I mean of course he'd suspect him. The audience wonders about it too. Lestat crashes the funeral, mocks his brother's death, and had no qualms killing Lily and his childhood priest (though Louis gets over those quickly lol). Louis was turned the very day Paul died so I'm sure he only realized there could be foul play until after that. And I totally imagine him being terrified of bringing it up but STILL.

STILL.

He screamed "YOU TOOK MY LIFE ! ... I LOST MY BROTHER !" then went on to pick up a daughter they could raise together and live the very best years of his marriage !

Insanity !

[crazykuroneko]

Joining the Rewind the Tape event

This will be my first time rewatching IWTV S1 since it's first broadcast (excluding the indirect watch I get from watching YouTube reactions). I'm bad at creating content, but I have been meaning to rewatch it the same way I watch movies; with my note app ready for me to write down things I notice. And like when watching movies, I don't really care about source material nor the existing theories; I just try to deduce from what I see. So, I feel this is a good way to refresh my mind before going into S2 after all the fanons and theories going around. I use my note to decide how I score a film, so I write down technical stuff as well.

If anyone wants to discuss, feel free to reply ✌️

Here is my note for S01E1:

• What a witty opening. Tricking audience that it's something it's not (an ad, which is closer to our reality). Setting the tone of what's to come.

• "Your sources are your Sherpas (a guide?). Your editor is your priest. Honesty is not a tactic."

• "Can he make his fantasy a reality?" Touche!

• 9/4/73. 4 September 1973

• Daniel looks so pissed listening to the old tape lol.

• That transition of Louis' face over the city. That's so Great Gatsby of him. And the long close shot makes Louis so still and inhuman, what a contrast with the ones from the church scene.

• "Have I hit the nerve?" Drink every time the script being so funny!

• Louis: "Yet you come anyway". Daniel: "That's my voice but I don't remember it" 

• "Truth and reconciliation" Reconciliation: the process of making two opposite beliefs, ideas, or situations agree.

• June 14, 2022.

• "The favored son. And capital to oversee as consequence"

• "You're a pimp". "The product is desire" The difference in their language in this dialogue is so interesting.

• Bricks hitting Fenwick after he tried to rape her. That's our girl 😌✊

• The score came up on the right time.

• Lestat witnessing and hearing the contradiction in Louis over loving his brother versus going hard on him in order to survive and falling in love immediately 😌✊✊✊✊

• "Let's not fuss on the particulars" Particulars in question are women being exploited and sometimes raped, but okay. 

• Florence and Grace don't like to hear the hard facts, I see. 

• "A lie I told myself about myself"

• No that white man Louis staring at is so ugly. Louis, please!

• Oh, Les definitely hears Tom inviting Louis for a game on Friday.

• "And there's a food" *gestures to Lily*. God, i love this script.

• Oh, Lestat did "mezmerized" Louis here (either accidentally or not idk), like he did with Paul later at the dinner. Hence, Louis says "not with my family".

• "Emasculation AND admiration in equal measure. I wanted to murder the man, and I wanted TO BE the man." Basically a summary of what attracts Louis to Lestat. 

• Lestat killing the white man with lamp scene is interesting if you consider what we watch as Louis' POV because logically Louis didn't see it as it happened in 1910. But the existence of this scene signals that 2022 Louis (or Louis after the fact) now knows that Lestat did prowling the city during the night killing people. Iirc there will be more scenes like this.

• Help Sam and Jacob's chemistry right when their eyes meet each other 😭😭😭😭♥️

• Not @ Lestat dumbing himself down in front of the white men and Louis smiled adorably over it even though he probably knew that's just an act. We lost him so fast

• The practical effects are so cool.

• Lestat was like don't you know your value etc etc, yet he still did not back up Louis to Fenwick. The red flag is red flagging.

• "He's not revealed his vampire nature yet." But Louis definitely knows something is up with him (see: two instances of "mezmerize" and the time stop)

• That shot of Leslou in the mirror at the tailor is so cute 🥺

• "Mother loves European" Louis is so her son 😂

• "He ain't takin' it you getting married" Paul was indeed getting worse 😭

• Lestat being so taken aback with how blunt Paul is then taken aback over Louis' lying to his family he's not enjoying opera is so funny. 

• Sam's eyebrows definitely have a life of their own lol

• Louis gives Lestat's "violent and weird peculiarity" a pass unless it's toward his loved ones. Reminds me of that Jacob's interview on the domestic abuse in the show.

• The talk Leslou have while walking back to Lestat's house is really the summary of Louis' different "hats". "They sit in judgement. Paul is the only one to say it to my face"

• Louis' action vs words when Lestat asked him for a "nightcap" is 🤌

• I thought Lestat's hand is in Lily's skirt when she seemingly orgasm, but it isn't. His hand also doesn't explore too much on her at Fairplay Saloon either compared to what Louis' narration implies. Is it the show being careful how they touch women or is it some kind of "censor"? I need to pay attention to it later.

• The choreo between Leslou to make it look like they're fighting for control/dominance. This is A grade yaoi 🤌🤌🤌🤌

• Louis checking on Daniel whether he has ~ embraced his sexuality~ then describing his homosexual intimate moment with drugs to a former addict is a very deliberate choice. Daniel isn't the only one digging in this interview.

• Drinking blood from another in an intimate setting feels extremely intimate

• Gosh Paul doesn't even want Levi to touch him

• The tap dance scene 😭 Paul 😭

• Paul spiralling down pre-wedding, seemingly angry during the wedding, eating a lot, remembering their best time, checking on Louis and Grace, saying I love you. Yeah, he definitely did it himself 🥲

• I know the night sky is a green screen, but the lights hit Louis' face so beautifully. I don't know how they did it 

• Florence 😡😡😡😡

• "Miss Lily proved herself a poor subtitute" Lestat 😡😡😡😡😡

• Lestat is completely out of touch with humanity, he only cares about himself.

• Finnick must think it's very weird that he has to keep Lestat away from Louis that he gets his arm broken but the next time they meet, Leslou are close again 😅

• Daniel Hart slaying with the score 🤌🤌🤌🤌

• Louis connects the dots when he hears Lily got the "fever" 😞

• Jacob's acting at the confession. The score filling the space over his voice. The mixing tuned up perfectly when Lestat snatching the priest. 🤌

• Lestat knocked down two lamps, one is so far away from the confession, to give proper lighting is so funny lol. (I know it's shooting necessity but still 😂)

• Sam definitely has a subwoofer in his throat wtf (I'm listening with earphones)

• You can see Sam hasn't used to talk with his fangs on here.

• The camera trick after Lestat punched the priest is so clever.

• I wonder what Lestat is hearing during his proposal scene, because he definitely gets Louis the moment he says he loves him. The change in Louis' face 🥲

• Sam's eye acting during the part laid over with Louis' narration. That part will always be my Roman Empire 

• "For the first time in my life, I was seen". Not "felt seen". He's still sure that that's a fact. 

• Louis already gives little nods the moment Lestat finished "for eternity" 🥲🥲🥲🥲

• Jacob's whole monologue during the turn 🤌🤌🤌

• "He sat there, radiant" *while Lestat's is laying down, catching his breath* Louis' narration is more "flowery" than the recollection?

Summary: I'm extremely impressed with how much we know about Louis' personality (especially the contradiction in himsef) just from the script of this episode. Alan Taylor trusts Jacob and Sam's ability a lot to do a lot of close-ups and just let their faces tell the story. Louis' costumes, scores, and audio mixing are perfection.

[o0anapher0o]

Miss Lily and character stereotpyes

I’ve been re-reading @halo4life2017-blog's rewatch blogs and the discussion we had about Miss Lily and about how Lestat might at some point tell us he only killed her because she was actually planning on blackmailing Louis or something like that, and I had some more thoughts I need to get out.

The thing about Lily as Louis presents her is, she’s a stereotype. The ‘whore with the heart of gold’ is a common trope. It’s a cliché the same way the though, street-hard, black pimp is, or the rich European genteel who is abhorred by American racism, the stately southern matron who saves face at all cost even if it means waving off a guests outburst with a comment about the weather, the sassy little sister who supports her gay brother and only wants to see him happy, or the religious zealot who is really a gentle angel when he’s not possessed by the holy spirit. All those are sterotypes that Louis uses when he introduces the people in his life to the story, ways he tries to shape the narrative perception of them. Or maybe lies he tells himself about them.

And all of these stereotypes get dismantled within the first episode: Louis is really a sensitive baby gay who likes to read and cries at the opera. Lestat is a terrifying vampire, who we can rightfully assume has never cared about how black people are treated anywhere prior to meeting Louis, and really still doesn’t.  Florence is an emotionally abusive bitch who happily unloads her own grief on her child, Grace is mommy little princess who deserts Louis when he needs her most to side with Florence and Paul is a condescending brat who shamelessly uses his mental illness for the liberties it gives him (we don’t talk about it enough because mental illness is tricky and Paul is a great character, but the way he acts towards Grace’s fiancé and wedding, and how he talks to the priests when he goes to confession are on a level of entitlement that’s breathtaking. And that’s instances when he’s supposedly ‘right in the head’. My favourite is ‘I wasn’t being rude”, like, yes, you were. Just because the voices in your head told you to say it doesn’t mean it’s not rude to say it and the fact that you’re trying to justify it tells me you know that.).

You could probably make a similar case almost all other characters, Bricktop, Tom Anderson, Levi, all of them are initially presented in a very stereotypical way and later we’re shown they are not quite what they seem at first (Fenwick might be the exception here, he’s always a horrible racist pig). Except for Lily. She never gets the chance to be shown as more, because she gets killed off-screen and is never brought up again.

But we do get hints that everything isn’t as Louis presents it with Lestat’s throwaway comment on her wretched life, or the fact that it takes Louis two weeks to even notice she was dead, which tells me they weren’t as close as some people seem to believe. (Yes, he was a regular customer, one she might even have liked but they definitely weren’t friends.). So yeah, I won’t be surprised if we do learn about some nefarious goings on she was involved in. That’s not to make Lestat look better btw, he did kill her and the main reason was no doubt to get a reaction from Louis and/or to dismantle his support system, but I do think there was more to it than that just ‘she was a poor substitute’. And just as a side note: since we tend to treat Louis as an unreliable narrator (justifiably so) if and when the time comes we certainly need to look at Lestat’s story the same way, because I’m pretty sure if anyone is trying to make Lestat look better, it’s going to be Lestat.  

[lestatthebrat]

Episode 5 — It works (TW)

I know a lot of people are upset. I understand we were hoping Louis and Lestat might get a happy ending in this series, and since amc has focused more on their love story, we were hoping Lestat would not be an abusive asshole... 

BUT I don’t feel that we were “betrayed by the writers” or that Lestat is “out of character” or anything like that. Lestat is the main villain in the original book (and also in the 1994 film), and one of the main points of his relationship with Louis in book 1 is that Lestat IS abusive and violent, forcing Louis into and trapping him in a terrifying relationship. In the book, Lestat abuses Louis physically, as Louis mentions multiple instances of Lestat hitting, kicking, and wrestling with him. Lestat manipulates and threatens to kill Louis and Claudia constantly, so Louis is literally afraid to go to bed at night because he thinks Lestat might murder him in his sleep. Louis is HORRIFIED of Lestat, which is why it takes so long before he attempts to leave him. Also, Louis’ transformation in the book is NOT consensual. Louis changes his mind before Lestat turns him into a vampire and tells him to let him die instead, but Lestat ignores him and makes him a vampire against his will. Anne Rice very explicitly equates this with rape, just as Lestat is violently and traumatically turned into a vampire against his will by Magnus. Lestat is physically, verbally, emotionally, and sexually abusive to Louis in the book. So the idea of Lestat being abusive to Louis is not “coming out of nowhere” or being “unfaithful to the character” AT ALL.  

This is not “coming out of nowhere” in the amc series either. They have been making hints and warning us about this from the beginning, like when Daniel tells Louis abuse victims often still love their abusers. When Louis says he “does not consider himself a victim,” the point is Louis is in denial, and he is trying to cover up for his abuser who he still loves, despite the violence Lestat inflicted upon him. Also, throughout the entire show, we’ve seen Lestat losing his tempter/mind, becoming violent, murdering people without restraint, smashing skulls, torturing people for pleasure… The dude is (and always has been) a bit unhinged. He can’t control himself, especially when he gets upset/angry. It does not seem out of character (or even surprising) to me that, in a moment of fury and panic, when he thinks Louis is going to leave him, he loses his tempter and does something horrific like this. Do you remember him ruining Louis’ brother’s funeral, murdering his friend Lily, and then slaughtering a bunch of priests in episode 1? 

Also (Spoilers, for people who haven’t read the book or seen the 1994 movie), in order for the rest of the story to WORK, for Louis and Claudia to plot to kill Lestat and go through with it, something like this really HAD to happen. We all loved seeing them as a happy family, how ever briefly it lasted, but if Lestat was not abusive to Louis, if Claudia did not feel like she and Louis were actually in danger from him, the murder would make no sense at all. It would make Louis and Claudia look like terrible people, and it would be hard to like THEM. Lestat is SUPPOSED to be the scary, unhinged, violent villian, and he always has been. The amc writers have not “ruined” Lestat’s character or turned him into a “bad guy” or a “monster.” Lestat has always been a bad guy: a violent, insane, murder/vampire, who does love Louis but will be sadistic, violent, and abusive to keep him with him. That’s kind of the point. 

And if you want to be mad at someone for “ruining the character,” be mad at Anne Rice. In later books, Lestat violently rapes a woman because they’re about to have sex, and she wants to use a condom and he doesn’t. Fans are okay with that, but not this episode? Wtf? But, at the end of that day, these characters are fictional, and you can imagine your own version of them in your head and ignore whatever elements you choose. 

[nalyra-dreaming]

Heyyy

What are your thoughts on religious symbolism or just religion in general in the story? Cos I started reading the books and was really surprised by how much the characters GET INTO IT lmao it’s really present in the story in a way the show mostly shied away from after the first episode I think, other than a couple exceptions it was mostly not explicit except a few references to hell.

Sooo I’m pretty hyped seeing some crucifixion imagery in season 2, I suppose I makes sense that Louis would be having a religious reckoning after losing lestat, and Armand is a character really defined by his faith so it will be interesting to see how deep they go with it. What are you hoping to see?

Hey!

Yes, there is a LOT of religious symbolism in the books (Anne struggled all her life with it, and that is threaded through). Lestat (and others) has a rather complicated relationship to the divine. In Memnoch he literally encounters God, and drinks his blood. Lestat is often likened to Christ in the books, something the show has obviously picked up on. After his ordeal with Memnoch he is bound and raving mad before he quiets into a coma, in a chapel.

(Young Lestat wants to become a monk/priest, prays to be released from his abusive family, shivers at the vicious futility at the Witches' Place.)

We have other characters who come from a vastly different backgrounds, too, like Marius in pre-Christian Roman Empire, or in the extreme (in a way) Akasha and Enkil in ancient Egypt, building themselves up to (Blood) Gods. For example.

The show has given Armand a muslim background, Daniel might have yet another one, maybe jewish.

I do not actually think they're shying away from all that - but they are giving themselves time to reach the important points here... and, of course, season 1 being told by Louis, put the focus somewhere else, because Louis actually did not wish to think about all that too deeply. Or, better, address it.

Now Louis obviously believed ... enough. Enough to feel deeply and utterly tortured about it all. I think that is true for book and show, and the show has taken the book comment and made it literal:

"What would Christ need have done to make me follow Him like Matthew or Peter? Dress well, to begin with. And have a luxurious head of pampered yellow hair."

Louis goes and runs to church when all else fails, in desperation. He kills the priest there, in the book.

Louis... will lose his faith in god, or, maybe better, switch it over to Lestat as his god, book canonically. (And he struggles with this, for a long time):

"He leaned close to me, and he put his hand on my arm. “ ‘Wither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people’; and because I have no other god and never will, you shall be my god."

Armand has also spoken of "I serve a god", which might be a callback to the events surrounding Memnoch. And, as you say, he is deeply defined by his faith. It will be truly interesting to see where they go for it in the show - how they go for it.

Of course the image of Lestat as if on a cross is imbued with meaning.

Louis himself later mediates on the fact that he "hated Lestat for the wrong reasons", and that the feelings that Lestat arouse in him did not have "hatred among them".

Lestat has been murdered, for sins he did not commit(*).

(*)Of course there is plenty to say about that - and Lestat himself never blamed Claudia! - but that which they (ultimately, simplified) hated him for... was not his fault, not really. Vampirism never freed any of them, it simply could not, and Claudia didn't have a choice in any case... and eternity is a long time to build up emotions. Or hate. (Or forgiveness.)

And so Lestat as Christ on a cross... calls back to that, in Louis' imagination.

So what I hope to see... hmm.

I don't think they'll put Memnoch into the show. I think if anything then Memnoch or a Memnoch-like event has already happened.

I hope... that we will get to see the characters struggling with their faith - or lack of it. I hope that we will get to see Lestat destroy the Parisian coven and the satanic cult there. I hope that we will see Armand struggling to find something to hold onto (and find it!). I want Louis to free himself from the shackles of catholic guilt, whether they go book canon or not. I want Lestat to make his peace with the Witches' Place and the futility of it all, the "dark" moment. I hope that we will see characters reflect and mirror the perceived truths of faith - and destroy the preconceptions.

I want all that.

I hope for all that :)

We'll see if they dare, but... I'm carefully hopeful^^.

Oh yes, and at the end... I want them to find their peace in their own religion, as in the books... their "Blood Communion".

[queenoftheimps]

Something I've just come to realize about the show version of Interview with the Vampire and its framing device is how much it connects to that confessional scene at the beginning.

Because in a very odd way, that's what this is: not solely an interview, but Louis' confession of his sins, writ large for the world to see.

The thing is: in Catholicism, confessions are private, between you and the priest. No one is supposed to listen in. Unless you are planning to harm someone, the priest is never supposed to tell anyone what you've said. You truthfully say what you've done, and, at the end, the priest is supposed to give you a penance to perform that lets you repent.

Louis tries to confess back in 1910. He tells the priest everything honestly, about his family and his work and his drinking, and he...never gets any penance. He doesn't get any method for repenting, because Lestat kills the priest. Whatever method he would have received to forgive himself for drinking and pimping and hiding, it doesn't arrive, because the priest is dead and unable to give it.

And over the next hundred years, those sins get so much worse than anything he did while alive.

In a weird way, I think he's still trying to chase that. He never got penance and he wants it. Louis wants to say everything that he's done and get rid of all the guilt he feels in a way that satisfies the Catholic side he was raised with.

Except...it's an inverse of how Catholic confessions are supposed to work. For starters, he's lying, to himself and to Daniel, which Daniel calls out repeatedly. He has Armand listening in, providing commentary and stopping him at points. And he wants to broadcast it to the world at large, so that everyone can hear exactly what he's done.

Which provides him a very brutal form of penance, which Armand himself calls out: suicide, by way of vampiric revenge.

To sum up: I don't think Daniel's wrong to say that Louis is using him like a whore paid to hear him talk. But I also think that, to some extent, Louis is trying to use him as the priest who will give him a way to forgiveness.

Except it's wrong. Because he's not really confessing to everything he's done. And Daniel knows that.

[catholic-character-tournament]

Round 1 - Side A

John Ward art credit @langel2

Propaganda below ⬇️

John

he's literally a priest and he's literally my little meowmeow. i don't have words right now but i love him. thanks

What he is about to do has not been approved by the Vatican.

He's a priest whose entire job is exorcising and hunting down demons. The Vatican does not want this. But he sure does do it!

i have nothing else to say but john ward shouldn’t be that fucking big why the fuck does the wiki say he’s 6’2 its not right it isn’t FAIR

Father Garcia is also a candidate but I wasn’t sure if you wanted more than one from the same series. I guess John does have a crisis of faith after all the stuff that happens but in 2/3 of the chapter 3 endings he continues fighting demons and stuff so ultimately he’s still catholic (he dies in the other ending so he doesn’t even leave the faith then).

hes so skrunkly and dumb, he makes mistakes then cries, hes too harsh on himself i want him dead but if he dies im gonna cry

look i know he's atari graphics but he's THE GUY ok?

he is *what i’m about to do isn’t approved by the vatican* incarnate -both literally and figuratively insane IT’S MORTIS TIME!!! and he mortised all over the demons

i want him in cat ears

He is so fucking traumatized and his faith is CONSTANTLY TESTED. He's god's soppiest little priest man and idk how he does it. But he remains faithful !! the bonus is that i have him in my brain (i have DID)

Performs an exorcism NOT approved by the vatican🙌🙌 fails and shoots that demon with a gun 🔥🔥🔥

so i'm not ENTIRELY sure if he counts as catholic because i don't really know the difference between christianity and catholicism as i'm not personally religious (the creator of faith is christian). but basically he fails an exorcism then battles demons and a cult because they wont leave him alone

Lestat de Lioncourt

Lestat was Catholic in his human life, and wanted to be a monk or priest, but was kept from it by his family. As a vampire he is, um, Extremely lapsed Catholic, although themes of religious belief (or lack thereof) are still very central to all the books. ALSO although the vampires believe that they are demons now it turns out that SPOILER they're actually possessed by pieces of an alien called Amel who is also formerly human and he bonded with Lestat for a while to become a Sacred Core but tbh I didn't read those books because the writing got pretty bad

[madly-empirical]

Surprises from reading IWTV for the first time I knew the TV show was a reinvention/reinterpretation from the books, but just coming off of re-watching the movie there were some things that I was surprised to find out: - Louis helps Lestat kill someone before he's turned him into a vampire (???) - Louis kills Lestat's father but makes him forgive him first without knowing the full story (it's like a mercy killing because the old man is dying so that "merciful death" nickname is a whole thing isn't it) - Louis kills a priest for being understandably annoyed when someone confesses to have been killing for a hundred years (did you think he wouldn't be offended be serious louis) - Louis says killing people was not a moral, but an aesthetic choice (very surprised, I thought the killing people was the main point of conflict but no?)

- There's a subplot with another wealthy slave-owning family where Louis tries to stop Lestat from killing a young man and is involved with his sister named Babette when he fails (it doesn't go well for her...) - Louis knows that Lestat wanted to be priest but was taken out of school by his father - Lestat calls books "mortal nonsense" (lol) - Louis' late brother who had religious visions also had yellow hair so parallels - Louis is weird about money (he's spending all my money, but he never has trouble getting his own, I have to manage everything, I keep him dependent on me, etc., etc.) - Lestat massacres the slaves on his way out, and Louis appears to join him (Very hard to tell for sure) - Louis drags nearly everything about Lestat except for his physical appearance - Lestat falls asleep at the opera (they're long Louis!) - Lestat loves Macbeth and will shout lines from the play at passersby on the way home (unfortunately that's the love of your life) - Claudia is colder and creepier in the book (it's interesting that she never plays music after Lestat is gone...) - Lestat threatens to kill Claudia all the time behind her back and at least once to her face - Louis notices that Lestat is afraid when Claudia asks questions about vampires stuff - Lestat, in a clear fib, tells them there's no other vampires besides them - Claudia tells Louis that she's going to kill Lestat and he's in the room where it all goes down - Claudia gots the hubris ("Do you think I will have my power and his when I take him?") - She is also super convinced that Lestat is dead the second time, but girl why? - Claudia and Louis have troubles before Armand shows up stemming from the murder of Lestat (she did tell you what she was going to do!) - Louis pretends to a vampire hunter to explain some weird stuff in Eastern Europe where they find mindless vampires (like some else said, why would you bring your 5 year old daughter to the vampire hunt??) - When they can't find any other vampires like them, Louis is like I might have believed that we were the only ones if Lestat was the kind of person to have been some kind of serious sorcerer — but he clearly ain't (lol) - Louis is totally head-over-heels ignoring all red flags and ready to go as soon as Armand shows up (even after Armand is like killing vampires is exciting that's why it's forbidden and btw I used my powers to influence you to make Madeline a vampire...) - Madeline is a dollmaker and makes elegant miniature furniture for Claudia so she lives like a fairy queen - Armand keeps going on and on about a tower and how a healthy vampire would survive falling off it (-_-) - Armand is like yes, mindless vampire are called revenants and it's like how do you know that but no one asks - Lestat is in Paris when Claudia is killed, clearly tricked and confused he thinks he can take Louis home with him (He is also afraid of Armand. Insane that there's like ten years between the publication of IWTV and TVL, it's so clear that something went down between the two of them but there's zero hints in IWTV on what it was) - Lestat is frantic and weepy when Louis sees him in his grey gardens area. Louis thinks he is dying the way vampires die according to Armand, he can no longer endure immortal life (maybe it was the being murdered more than once that got to him Louis? Just maybe that might have had some effect...) Overall, I found book!Louis infuriating, hypocritical, complicit (NOT passive) and kind of self-involved. Impossible to tell what it felt like to read it for the first time without having knowledge from later books. Reading TVL makes me more sympathetic towards book!Louis because there's just so much he doesn't and couldn't know — especially about Armand and his hypno-powers. Obviously, it's very likely that he was doing a similar thing to Louis to what he tried to do to Lestat. Also, Lestat's version of himself sounds exhausting. He wants to go out every night!!

[jemgirl86]

Even though it’s been talked to death at this point, one more thing about episode 5:

When people say “Lestat would never do that! It was so out of character!” I always want to say: “Are you sure?”

And, no, not because Lestat killed those two priests or anyone else. For the record, I do not believe that just because someone kills or hurts the man down the street or a person at a bar or whatever, it means that they’ll go home and eventually do the same to their loved ones. There are stone cold killers who do what they do, and then go home as if nothing happened everyday.

No, I think Lestat’s behavior during that “fight,” (that wasn’t really a fight; Louis was just defending his child and himself) wasn’t out of character because of his behavior towards Louis since episode one. Don’t get me wrong, what he did in episode 5 was definitely an escalation, but it wasn’t out of left field like some are implying or flat out saying. Lestat had been possessive and jealous and prone to outbursts when Louis did something he didn’t like or approve of. In that moment, with the possibility of Louis leaving him thick in the air, Lestat’s behavior was spot on for the character as we’d (the audience) come to know him so far.

Idk, I guess this is just a long winded way of saying, episode 5 was just Lestat being Lestat, and the blame lies with Lestat. Louis and Claudia didn’t drive him to do anything, he’d been acting like that. He just took his own out of pocket behavior a very big step further. Also, it’s okay to admit that and still like the character. Sometimes it’s like people think they can’t like a “bad” character, so they go out of their way to excuse their behavior or call it out of character or woobify them, and, I mean, that’s their prerogative, but it’s fine to just say “man, Lestat is fucked up but I still like him,” too.

[licncourt]

Ok I really need to know how you would make an IWTV movie adaption in 2023

“I’ll explain how I would make a iwtv 2023 movie” all your meta and fics slaps so yes please lol

Okay so. I have a couple different options here based on the desired approach, both of which I personally like. Disclaimer that some of this stuff was already done by the movie and/or show! It's just also what I would do.

The first thing I would want stylistically is a merging of objectivity with Louis' POV. I think it would be interesting if sometimes Louis' narration conflicts with what we're seeing on-screen. Maybe he, like in the book, doesn't explicitly admit to anything romantic between himself and Lestat, but we see them kissing and having sex, or Louis describes Lestat being cruel but when we see it it's obvious that Louis' memory has clouded the events or that he missed something that we as an audience are being shown.

For other logistics, we have a couple options I'm willing to explore. The first would be following along with the AMC casting of Louis as a black man (his personal struggles with race could run along the lines that show took in eps 1-4), but I would keep the original Antebellum setting. I think keeping him a brothel owner is fine, although I also think a storyline with him as a black slaveowner could be really interesting if done well.

The insane hypocrisy of Louis' stance on the value of human life can be highlighted in either scenario, though the slaveowner narrative pushes the Louis Exceptionalism Factor which allows him to follow along with his book counterpart in thinking he's a very special boy who is not like others of his same minority. Regardless though, I thought the show made him too self-aware. This Louis would not understand the gravity of human exploitation. As God intended.

The other option would be to keep a "book accurate" Louis and either go the brothel route or keep him as a slaveowner and really lean into his book characterization here. He very crucially is NOT framed in the simple "good" vampire light he is in the movie, but has his hypocrisy around exploitation and the value of human life highlighted. In order to go that route, he has to be definitively bad, even if he thinks he's trying to be good. He's a moral philosopher who's laughably bad at practicing what he preaches, crying about his soul being damned for all the wrong reasons.

I think this would also be a good opportunity to use vampirism as an allegory for the concept of slavery and exploitation itself, the rich and privileged subsisting off the suffering of others. Again, in order to make the slavery aspect worthwhile, it would need to be treated with care and justify its inclusion. Just tossing it in like the movie did is not it

Lestat's characterization would remain largely true to the book, but the format I talked about before could help give the audience glimpses into a more sympathetic and complex Lestat, one that's not filtered purely through Louis' anger and grief. Even things like body language and facial expressions can say so much. We still only see what Louis saw, but without his bias. I would also want a young actor playing him, something that's important for his character.

Some bullet points:

- The circumstances of Claudia’s turning are pivotal imo, so it stays true to the book, including the chronology of events (it's subtle, but the movie flips it) and the events themselves (unlike the show)

- Claudia is as close to Kirsten Dunst's performance as possible. No notes

- Louis is explicitly portrayed as gay, Lestat as bisexual

- Short and sweet Babette storyline. No more than ten minutes, just establishing Louis' sexuality and his desire to be "good" and "normal"

- Louis' religious trauma and specifically Catholic guilt are emphasized (PAUL AND PRIEST SCENE)

- Any incestuous feelings Claudia has for Louis are either left out or portrayed with more purpose and internal narrative than in the book

- Explicit parallels between Louis' desire for blood and his sexuality/between vampirism and illicit sexual desire

- A Hispanic (preferably Latino) actor plays Armand in the Antonio Banderas tradition

- Paul and the Marquis both have the same role as in the books. The Marquis in particular would be great for rounding out Lestat's character

- Emphasis on Lestat's love for Claudia!!

- Night one coffin sharing, the body horror of turning, Lestat in Paris, the priest scene, and all the weird, funny shit we meme on (dark comedy is definitely a part of IWTV) is kept in

- The vampires can fuck

- Lestat's backstory is lightly hinted at, but NOTHING definitive besides the fact that he was turned against his will (with the clear suggestion of the SA parallel)

- Antoine can be male or female. Both work I think (male pushes the idea that Lestat is feeling rejected and alone and trying to "replace" Louis to avoid more hurt. Female highlights the tension that Louis' internalized homophobia, especially with the gay vs bi dynamic and his potential insecurity there)

If I think of more to add to any of this, I'll reblog later!

[skel-skell]

ep 1 of INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE was immaculate.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

toward the end of the ep, louis’ character goes into a monologue during his confession to the priest, screaming that he’s an awful man. he’s a black man who uses women as stepping stones to profit himself and family to make them affluent and respectable in 1910 New Orleans. He rages that he’s the reason why his brother committed suicide and why his sister and his mother won’t talk to him. and mind you, this is a HUMUNGOUS contrast to the man we met at the start of the episode who was the boss who made it big and made a name for himself and kept his shit together. but now, he’s falling apart, begging god (who he hasn’t spoken to since he was child) to kill him, to bring him death. and not to mention, lestat is in his head. he’s compelling louis to come to him (should be noted that after they made love, louis ran from him). lestat is aggressive, manipulative, but loving, doing EVERYTHING he can to bring louis back to him.

but come to find out, instead of going to lestat, he runs to god, a figure in lestat’s past that ruined him. lestat blames everything that’s wrong with him on god. he devoted many years before his vampire years to god and instead, god gave him beatings and starvation from his father. god did not save lestat from abuse. lestat hates him for it and louis just RAN to him, CONFESSED to him, CLAIMED he “SLEPT WITH THE DEVIL AND HIS SPINDLY ROOTS ARE SO DEEP IN ME THAT I HEAR HIM.”

lestat feels betrayed by louis and runs into the chapel and murders the priest in front of louis, tears down the confessional walls, and screams at him with blood dripping down his lips that he should feel humiliated, stupid that he confessed to a man who doesn’t care. he’s angry and hellacious, and louis is terrified and to make matters worse, lestat PUNCHES his fist through the HEAD of another priest in the chapel!

louis thinks lestat is gonna kill him so he’s SCRAMBLING to get away from him, walking backward to the ALTAR with lestat following him. eventually, he trips and falls onto his butt and for a moment, lestat leers over him before he KNEELS to louis, essentially glorifying him.

lestat just realized what he did, he MURDERED in front of the man he loves, showed him the monster he truly is and now he realizes this is a do or die situation so he CHOOSES HIS NEXT WORDS CAREFULLY.

in an alluring voice, he tells louis he SEES him and his sorrow and the burden he carries by being black and being the breadwinner and all these different things. he knows the agony he felt when louis lost his brother, he FELT it. HE FELT LOUIS and he wants to make it better. he wants louis to worship him as he does him bc he LOVES louis and he could give him the WORLD, take away his pain and they could fix each other as long he says yes and gives into him, as long as he WORSHIPS A NEW “GOD” that can actually help him, that will be there for him.

they both are vulnerable right now especially louis and lestat capitalizes on it. he seduces him and louis falls from grace RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE CROSS, IN FRONT OF GOD AND HIS DESECRATED CHAPEL.

he kisses lestat and he becomes one with the devil, or well in this case, a vampire.

damn.

[murfeelee]

IWTV 2022 INSP - EP7: The Thing Lay Still Pt2b

Lestat: "I'm going to miss this place. There's not an inch of this city that wasn't built from the fierce wilderness that surrounds it. Hurricanes, floods, fevers. The damp climate on every painted sign, every stone facade. High windows, through which enameled bits of civilization glitter. Silhouettes emerging, wandering out to catch a silent flash of lightning. The silky warmth of summer rain. Desperately alive...and desperately fragile."

-- Interview with the Vampire (AMC 2022, S01E07)

MY THOUGHTS & CC CREDITS

MY THOUGHTS (me flipping the eff out over this scene I’m calm I promise)

BEST SCENE IN THE WHOLE SEASON, FIGHT ME.

LESTAT looking at Louis like he was READY TO CRY, I CANNOT.

The EFFING GENIUSES at AMC went and spun something Lestat actually said in the books about New Orleans as the Savage Garden (see my post about that), and applied it DIRECTLY to Louis--because THE SAINT IS NOT A CITY!

Antoinette tried to get Lestat to leave New Orleans, LOUISiana with her, but the dumb wench wasn’t listening!

When Lestat said “ “I'm going to miss this place,” he wasn’t talking about missing stupid New Orleans--he was talking about how much he was going to miss LOUIS, because he KNEW Louis & Claudia were plotting his demise the whole time, and he wasn’t going to fight if LOUIS wanted him dead.

HOME is not a place, but a person--WHAT did Mr. Pyromaniac du Lac say about Lestat?

Louis and Lestat are HOME to each other.

This “place“ ain’t New Orleans, and the “city” 👏 ain’t  👏 a  👏 saint. 👏

And that’s on top of them both being struggling Catholics, with all the religious significance of St. Louis the city where Lestat wanted to live; St. Louis Cathedral where Louis ran when he wanted to die; and Lestat constantly calling Louis his "saint.”

(It’s crazy how in BOTH of those scenes Louis missed the point entirely AGAIN and insulted HIMSELF--calling St. Louis “dull as dishwater,” and saying he was “trash” when Lestat said he was a “challenge.” Louis, my love, GET HELP.)

Even Louis’ sister Grace calling his new green eyes “church windows,” like in St. Louis’ Cathedral, because NO ONE can help worshiping this man I swear!

Lestat spent his childhood wanting to be a PRIEST. He wanted to run away from home to worship the SAINTS, before his father beat it out of him and forced Lestat to sit at home and play chess and take care of his depressed/bedridden mother Gabrielle (*cough* Lestat & Claudia & Louis *cough* ANNE RICE YOU WILL BE MISSED, WOMAN!).

Lestat lost his faith in God, and after being made a vampire he thought he was damned for eternity, and was suicidal MULTIPLE TIMES. Louis called him THE DEVIL. And Lestat called Louis THE SAINT. Lestat finally found someone who had what it took to best him--because saints kill devils--and Lestat turned Louis in ST. LOUIS CATHEDRAL--someone hand me some FRIGGIN TISSUES! 😭🤧

______________________________________________

CC CREDITS

- Poses by @danjaley​

[gaelmeee]

Episode 5 was...something. But I have a few thoughts about the fight scene at the end:

I have not read the books so I don't have strong feelings on whether or not the show did some character assassination on Lestat. I only know of Lestat from the film and this series (and some research on the net).

I know the fight could be triggering for some, it's very extreme. I usually replay every episode after I watched it but I haven't this ep because it just hurts huhu, so I'm currently basing my thoughts on what I remember on this one viewing.

Disclaimers aside, here are the thoughts:

I lowkey question how extreme the fight was really. I believe there was a fight but that it might've been not that sooo extreme???

In episode 1, we see Lestat punch someone through the head. How strong is Louis's vampire head that Lestat was not able to go through it like what he did with the priest? Lestat also nonchalantly broke said priest's legs at the start of episode 2, he probably could've done that to Louis too. Also, I don't know if I'm remembering this right, but was Bruce able to break Claudia's arm or something??? If I am remembering correctly then vampires might not be invincible to other vampires' attacks. This whole paragraph also might mean nothing because Lestat did say during the fight that he was holding himself back so that disregards all my points.

In episode 4, Lestat told Claudia to be careful of driving because even if they're immortal "...you can still smash your pretty little head and then take long dull months to recover,". They were waaay up in the sky, if Lestat did let Louis go at that height, wouldn't he be smashed by logic?

Also, it's kinda sad that the first time a bite and floating combination was in the show it was romantic, this was the opposite huhu.

Episode 3 established how unreliable of a narrator Louis was, and the show has been using that for stuff Louis didn't want to divulge but his imperfect memory hasn't been brought up again. Well did it? I don't remember haha but for the sake of this argument let's pretend it wasn't. The extremeness of the fight could be related to that? Jacob Anderson also has mentioned in an interview that "...As the season goes on, you’ll start to see Louis question his own memories." So there could've been more questionable memories other than the was it raining or not scene.

Sam Reid's podcast episode also opens with him saying "...There will come a day where I think Lestat turns around and goes actually this how it fucking happened," What event more to dispute than the fight in this episode.

In conclusion, I believe there was a fight and that it was bad but that it might've been not as violent as what was shown. I do appreciate the focus on Claudia while the fight was happening because the violence was sort of censored and we the audience was able to focus on Claudia's horror and not the bloodshed that was happening. Lestat bad, poor Louis and I look forward to see if their house magically repairs itself in the next episode after being destroyed in this episode.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Rewatch thoughts episode 1

Been rewatching the pilot, and the fact that Louis puts down his foot to tell Lestat not in front of his family…that really implies that Lestat has used his tricks at least a few times in front of Louis. I mean Louis talks about that he asks and that Lestat keeps telling him later. And now I want to know when and how Lestat used the tricks…

I‘m watching the Cast Diaries version and the hunger in Lestat’s expression in the extra shots (to not show Miss Lilly‘s nudity) is palpable.

Also: Louis talks about himself as a human experiencing the little drink for the first time… so how often did he? How much of that courting phase is he downplaying there? How often did he come back before Paul‘s funeral? (Instead of actually shutting that night from his mind?) Also interesting to set that in relation of him not being too … fazed by Lestat feeding on/killing the priests. What if Lestat actually showed him before, like in the book?

A propos funeral: they really took the Lestat would not be ignored quote from the book and put it and his anger management issues right into the episode (of course at dinner, too). Right there. Episode 5 was heavy but it really was setup there already.

The discrepancies between what Louis says and what we are shown are very visible in the church, too (already). No stab wounds in Lestat’s back, he’s laying, not sitting. The comment I wanted to slit his throat but couldn’t move comes to mind, and I do think that is what happened then in episode 7, too. And then Claudia did it, like in the book.

All in all still as gripping as (the 10 times 🤪) before. I cannot wait to see season 1 and 2 as a whole and then see the parallels.